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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Susan Quant Bianchi 
April 23, 1992 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Linda C. Meuter  00:01 
92. I am in the home of Susan Quant Bianchi in Blaine, Washington, doing her life history 
research. Sue, where would you like to begin telling me your life history? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  00:20 
Linda, I've given it a lot of thought, and I've gone in many directions, and just a few minutes ago, 
I could only think of one place to start, and that was in thinking of a title for-- if you can possibly 
title your life. The title was, Have I Told You I Love You Today? And that, that's-- it's a long 
story, but it kind of comes from, started with the book, I Love You Forever. And I don't know if, 
if anyone has read it, it's the most beautiful book about living, and loving, and dying. And two 
Christmases ago, we were with my grandmother, and she was dying in the hospital. We spent 
Christmas Eve with her, and it was sad and beautiful at the same time, something was beautiful 
about it. And we came home, and my sister Kathy had given my middle son, Kevin, the book I'll 
Love You Forever. And I know Chris and I sat and read that book, and we bawled, and we cried, 
and cried. We were sobbing. And we thought that's how life ought to be, because this woman 
had raised her family and loved them so thoroughly and so completely. And then when she died, 
her son took right over where Mom had left off, and told the story that Mom had always told to 
him when he went to sleep. Then he started telling this story to his children. Well, my story is a 
little different, in, in that two years ago, I found out I had cancer, and I started a tradition at that 
time of saying to my youngest son, who was four years old at the time, have I told you I love you 
today? And because I just wanted to know every single day that I love him, and he'd laugh and 
say, Yes, you've already told me you love me, Mom. And I'd say, Oh no, I didn't tell you I loved 
you today, did I? And always get a few kisses out of that. Well, just recently, my cancer's come 
back, and it's been really rough, and he's very scared, I know. About losing Mom. We all are, and 
I changed it to, when he'd come be-- I'm in a hospital bed here, in the living room over here. And 
so I changed it to-- I still do I love you, have I told you I love you today? But I changed it to, and 
I look at him, and I'd say, Scott, I say, I'll love you forever. And so every single day, and every 
night I tell him that I'll love him forever. And one night he asked me how, if I wasn't here, how-- 
he didn't really say if I wasn't here, because he's afraid of even echoing those words. But I knew 
what he was feeling, and he just asked how, you know, maybe I could tell him that if, like, 
maybe if I were in heaven. And I said, Because I'm your mom, and just because I'm your mom, 
and because I love you so much, I'll love you forever, no matter where I am. And so that's kind 
of been my theme, and how I feel about what's happened to me, and the fact that love does go on. 
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It goes down through the generations, and if I leave nothing more in this world than the one thing 
that my children will be able to go on and marry, and marry someone that they love, and have 
children that they love, then they'll have it all.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  04:05 
That's wonderful. I'd like, I'd like you to expand on, on your feeling about love and the roots of 
love in your life, and maybe you can go back to your early childhood, or your very earliest 
experiences you can remember. Even talk about the surroundings that you grew up in as a child 
and, and how love has grown in your life, and that you've become this loving mother.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  04:40 
Okay, yeah. Boy, a lot to say about that. I had a very loving mother. Matter of fact, it is as 
though love was at the core of her very essence. I was-- I, I was brought up with love, total love. 
Just, sometimes almost probably a consuming kind of love because of the way my mother was 
raised. All my mother ever wanted was five daughters. She wanted children, and she wanted 
children to love her, and to love them, and and to go camping with them, and do things with her. 
That's all she wanted out of her life, and I know that she wanted to be the perfect mother, which, 
of course, I've learned now, raising teenagers, I've learned that that's an impossibility. None of 
us-- we can set out try to be the perfect mother, and there is no such thing. When I was little, I 
felt very loved. I-- I guess what I'd like to say is that, that love later grew into something that was 
different, and I'll talk about that later. Things happened. I guess I just say things happened that 
changed, that changed our lives. One of them was alcohol, later. One was also maybe some 
insecurity. I think my mom felt insecure as us children grew older, but when we were little, she 
was just like, kind of the perfect mother. I was born in 1945 right as the war ended, and my 
father had been away for, what I think, since '41 when we entered the war. And he was a captain 
in the Navy, and he was, he was-- his ship was called the SS-- USS Gilmore, I believe, and he 
was in the in the Pacific. He was stationed in the Pacific for four years, and the only way they 
saw each other for four years was if Dad could get a coded letter home to Mom. And somehow, 
by code, you know, their meeting place, they had, I don't remember what it was, I wish I did, but 
they met in San Francisco, whenever he had to leave. But he could never write to Mom and just 
say, I'll be in San Francisco on a certain date, because everything was coded. But they learned 
well, what, how to-- Dad and Mom learned that correspondence well, and learned how to so 
Mom could figure it out. Well, she would be in San Francisco, no matter what, you know, 
money, she had to get together, and she would get down there. And I think that happ-- being 
married, she got married in 1939, so she's just-- they've just celebrated their 50th anniversary, 
and in '39 then in '41 after two short years of marriage, to have your husband leave and be alone. 
And she was alone basically, for four years. She'd been very, very lonely. Then, when I was born 
in 1945, she just had, and my dad was still gone in the war, and so she just had this over 
abundance of love to give to a child. I love the story that mom always shared was-- and that was 
that I was conceived in San Francisco on-- in October, or No-- I guess it would be November on 
on one of his last leaves out from the service. And I think that's kind of wonderful. Matter of 
fact, they loved to tell that story all through my growing up. Then my dad didn't see me till, I 
think I was nine months old. He, after the war was over-- wasn't over in, in, let's see, so I was 
born in August of '45, I think the war was declared, declared over in December, wasn't it? Or 
November? I'm not sure, but my dad wasn't home for nine more months, just in time to bring the 
greatest joy into my life, which was my sister, Chris. She was conceived as soon as my dad got 
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home, and then my mom had daughter number two. Another story that I'd like to share is the 
great hardship my mom had in having children. She had two miscarriages, probably on leaves 
that my dad was on. He'd come home and my mom would get pregnant, but she had two 
miscarriages, and she was a bleeder, so every time she had to go to the hospital, and there was 
always a fear of of her losing her life and because she hemorrhaged so. And so when she was 
pregnant with me, she stayed in bed almost the entire nine months in order to, in order to have 
me. And so I was just considered absolutely precious. And then nine months, when my dad got 
home, my sister was started, and nine months after that, so my sister, Chris, was born. So she's 
18 months younger than I am, and other than my family, I just-- it's the truth, so I have to say it, 
she's the absolute greatest joy in my whole life. We were soulmates from the time she was born, 
and to this day, we're soulmates. She knows what I'm feeling and thinking. I don't have to say it-- 
last night, well, yesterday, a good friend of mine's father died, and she told me the story of it, and 
it was really upsetting to me, and I was thought I was hiding, totally hiding what I was feeling, 
and I guess I did a great job. No one else knew it, but Chris knew it. And I told Chris before I 
went to bed that I felt really anxious and kind of down. And she said, I know why you're anxious 
and down. Well, she knew why, and that's how we've been since the time she was born, and we 
were-- we were always together. We went everywhere together. We were playmates. We just 
absolutely loved each other. We shared a bedroom. I mean, I went from her bedroom to Stan's 
bedroom. I never knew about being alone. I never knew how you know, and I'd always try to slip 
in if she's sitting over there. I always tried to slip into bed with her and she say, Oh, Sue. I'd say, 
Oh, Chris, I want to sleep with you tonight. And you know, it's just always been that way. I have 
thousands of stories I can-- that's another segment, I'm sure.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  10:58 
Well, where is, where is home? You're talking about home. I'd like to know. Maybe you could 
describe this to me-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:02 
That you-- that, that your mother and you were-- where you were when you're-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:02 
--home?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:04 
--Seattle. I was born in Seattle. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  11:10 
You were born in Seattle, and then you lived there for? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:16 
Only five years, and then we moved to Portland. But to me, home was always Bellingham. 
Chuckanut Drive was home. That's where I grew up. That's where I spent from 10 till I got 
married when I was 19. We had a piece of property, my parents bought on Chuckanut Drive. It 
was an acre on a cliff. We owned a third of a beach. It was absolutely wonderful. And they-- my 
mom designed a house and built a three story house there on top of the cliff. That, that was 
always home. 
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Linda C. Meuter  11:45 
Sue, Chuckanut sound like-- sounds like a wonderful home. And I would wond-- I was 
wondering if you could expand on the meaning of home, and what Chuckanut brought, how that 
meaning developed.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  11:58 
Okay, it did. The meaning of home to me is traditions. It's simple. That's what home is. It's all the 
traditions, and that's what a mom has to leave her daughters, are traditions. That's what I brought 
to my home, the traditions that I'm leaving my children, that I want them to carry down through 
the generations, and the traditions in my home when I was growing up. But one thing comes to 
my mind, and it's just a crazy thing, and I'll call it-- it's called Spode. My mom had Spode. She 
saved for years and bought, you know, one piece at a time, this whole set of Spode. She liked the 
kind of china that was homey. And we always had these red glasses, and for kids, I mean, there 
was nothing-- we didn't have crystal. We had red glasses. That was, to us, the classiest, most 
exciting glasses you could drink out of. And every single Sunday after we went to church, that 
Spode was on our table, no matter what the table, no matter what the dinner, we didn't do 
anything. I mean, we weren't running around with our friends, or doing anything else. Our 
friends could come to my house. But we had the china was on the table, and those red glasses-- I 
mean, you know how kids remember odd things? Well, it was the red glasses, but-- and the 
Spode. And there was, you know, usually roast dinner, and we sat around the table and we 
visited, and we talked, and it was a time of sharing. And that's one of the main traditions that I 
remember as having been important. Christmas was a big thing in my family, huge, and it is in 
my own family with my children. When I was growing up, the tradition was Saturday night or-- 
Saturday night, but Christmas Eve, we had a smorgasbord. And to this day, Christmas Eve is my 
whole family's favorite part of Christmas. It's a smorgasbord because we've always liked food, 
and we always did, you know, quite a variety of Swedish cooking. And my dad, his project was 
always to make julekake, and there was pickled herring, and pickled, I don't know, pickled 
everything, you know. And we had blue cheese. My mom had to have blue cheese. And, you 
know, the platters of cheeses, and the breads, and all the variety of meats, but, but the Swedish 
food on the table. And I didn't usually do too much in the kitchen, as far as making the julekake, 
but I think my sisters did. I haven't mentioned her yet, but I have a sister, Kathy, and she's three-
and-a-half years younger than I am, and if I recall, right, she and Chris were usually in the 
kitchen helping Dad. It was a braided bread that you would-- it was, it took hours to make, and 
raise the dough, and everything, and then you put it-- it was in three long strips, and then you 
took these strips, and you braided all of it, and it was filled with Christmas candies, you know, 
Christmas fruits, and then just kind of a glaze on top. And we'd eat it for-- it was this big by this 
wide. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  15:03 
It was huge, and it would take us several weeks to eat. You know, slice it off and toast it and-- 
julekake was a tradition, you know? And we always had the socks hung, and Santa Claus would 
come and fill the socks. The socks are important to me. It's a, you know, and your names have to 
be on the socks, says Mom, and Dad, and Sue, and Chris, and Kathy. All our names there. Other 
traditions were going to church every Sunday. I sang in the choir. And so, on Thursdays, I would 
go to choir practice, and on Sunday, I mean, we were there, and I-- music. Music was an 
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important part of my growing up. Oh, I could talk forever about the-- really, I could. About the 
traditions. Music was important, and my mom brought that into our lives. We had a beach, like I 
mentioned, and during the summer, we'd walk down to the beach with our bags and bags of food 
and everything, and we'd swim all day and have a barbecue, but every night the fire was going, 
you know, we had the big log fires. And we sang. We sang all the old song, My Gal Sal and, you 
know, By the Light of the Silvery Moon [sings], and all of those songs. And my mom taught all 
the songs to me, and that's one thing I haven't done. I haven't taught my kids those songs, they're 
in-- they're so into their, you know, up-tempo, hip songs that they haven't got a second to listen 
to the old ones. My mom taught-- my mom taught me that music of all generations was 
important. Glenn Miller music to Elvis Presley. Elvis was what was popular, you know, when I 
was in junior high. So, it was, it was Glenn Miller to Elvis. So, singing was an important part. 
Everything from singing on the beach, singing in the choir, and I ended up going, you know, to 
college later, and majoring in music and my music took me a lot of places. It helped you. I 
remember about 20 years ago, helping you learn to sing. And my mom brought that into our 
lives, and that-- and so music was always a tradition. We would sit around my house in the living 
room and sing. My sisters were always afraid of singing and never felt they were good enough. 
But I disagree with that. I think all members of a family should sit around and sing together. It 
makes you feel close. And it's just a-- it's kind of a warm, cozy thing to do together. Other 
traditions we did. I think other loves, I could say, and I don't know, but one thing that comes into 
my mind is sledding in the snow. And as you know, we don't get a lot of snow in Whatcom 
County, but when it snowed, we went sledding. And one of the-- my fondest memories is the fact 
that my mom went sledding with us. And I can remember we had the old sleds that Mom and 
Dad had from the time they were little kids, and probably some-- I think we had a third sled 
anyway. So, Mom was always on a sled, we had three sleds, so Mom was always on the large 
sled with one of us. And I can remember just like it happened yesterday, yelling, because my 
mom would drag her feet down the hills, you know, trying to slow down. And everybody yelling, 
Mom, pick up your feet, pick up your feet, you know. And now, I mean, now I can, as a mom, I 
can definitely see why she drug her feet. It's scary, you know, but the fact that she went and she 
did all those things with us. And another tradition we had was camping. We-- I don't remember a 
trip that we stayed in a hotel. So, I don't have fond memories of glamorous vacations and 
glamorous weekends away. We went camping, and when I was talking about tents, and Coleman 
stoves, and the lanterns, and that whole thing. We went to Orcas Island every August and we 
stayed about three weeks. And that was a tradition. We did it from the time I was maybe in the 
second grade until I was in the seventh or eighth grade, and we-- every August, for three weeks 
we were at Orcas Island at Moran State Park. And that was, you know, I look back, and that was 
one of the fondest memories I have. Now, my birthday was always celebrated, you know, at that 
time on Orcas Island, and it was a big deal, you know, on vacation, Sue got to have her birthday, 
and I always had one request. There's talk-- tradition again. My tradition was German chocolate 
cake, and my mom made it from scratch, you know, every birthday, and that was the tradition. 
And the traditions go on and on. I, you know, I could just keep going on them, but they're what 
we have to leave our families and what they take some of our-- my traditions, I hope, and will 
share them with their children. And though I'm coming to learn that we don't live forever, we do 
in our traditions and in our love.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  15:03 
So, like, two feet. 
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Linda C. Meuter  20:05 
So tell me some more about your family. 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  20:09 
I'd like to talk about my dad. My dad, all my memories of him, he was a hard worker and he 
was-- he was gone a lot. I think those are also some sad memories of my dad. He was on the road 
Monday through Friday, and basically, we had a weekend dad. And I think that's, I think that's 
rough. I think the men today have it a lot better. Well, I shouldn't say the men today. My husband 
doesn't have to have that kind of a work schedule, and so he is a full-time dad. And I think that, 
that means so much more when you can get closer to your kids, when you get to see them all the 
time.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  20:44 
What did your dad do?  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  20:46 
My dad was an insurance adjuster for Farmers Insurance, and he did it until the day he retired. It 
was a hard job, and it was hard on him. He had cases that were hard on him, where maybe a little 
boy was, was maimed or killed, and he was the adjuster on the case, and he would come home 
with this. And at night, I still-- he was home more-- my memories are that he was home more 
from the time maybe that I was 10, and he worked Whatcom, and Skagit, and Island County. So 
he had all those counties, anyone that had Farmers Insurance, he was their adjuster. And my 
memories from 10 on of him are sitting at the telephone with a dictaphone, talking to people, you 
know, for hours. My dad was a sweet man. That's probably number one word that comes to my 
mind as far as describing him. He was very sweet and he was very gentle. He loved to fish. So 
that was also back to tradition, something that we did do. Smelt fishing, and steelhead fishing, 
and and he just absolutely loved to fish. We weren't ever real crazy about fishing, because what 
we knew about it was, you put your pole out and you never caught a fish, you know. So, it wasn't 
really exciting to the three of us. My dad, we always called him Clark Gable because we thought 
he looked like Clark Gable a little bit, and he was just absolutely the sweetest man. He let my 
mom be the boss. So I was-- my mom was absolutely-- my mom was the dominant parent figure. 
My mom was the boss, and I can still hear him, he's always saying, Whatever you want, honey. 
You know, whatever you want, honey. Which I've also come to realize being married is 
sometimes a cop out, because I think at that time, I thought my mom wanted to be boss, and I 
think she did. But I've also learned that sometimes you don't always-- you don't want to be boss. 
You want the man to make the decisions and, and I think they tend to take the easy road 
sometimes, and sit back and let the wife make more decisions, instead of doing, you know. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  22:48 
 About the home? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  22:50 
About the home and about raising kids. You know, I think joint decisions are much more 
valuable than whatever you say, honey. And I think that that's kind of a cop out. Maybe it's 
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called I'm tired, you know, I've had a long day at work and I'm tired, but Mom's tired too, you 
know, so... Dad was wonderful. 
 
Linda C. Meuter  23:12 
Good. So you've, you've talked a lot about your family and a lot about your traditions. Can you 
expand as you're growing up and enlargen, or expand on your-- on your family and your 
decisions as you started moving away from family and how you recognize-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  23:34 
Oh, do I have to move away from family already?  
 
Linda C. Meuter  23:35 
No, no you don't.  
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  23:36 
I'm just teasing. One-- well, I guess if I'm going to move away from family, I better meet Stan, 
and so I'll talk about that. When I was 10 years old, because I'm not moving away from my 
family until I meet him, am I? When I was 10 years old, I was swimming around in the water at 
home, and I looked up and down came-- down the steps came the tallest, skinniest, young man I 
had ever seen. He was 13 years old, and I think he probably weighed 110 pounds. He had a 
mohawk haircut, and he lived up the hill. I'd never met him before, but what happened was my 
mom had met his mom, and her name was Charlotte, and had invited her and her kids to come 
down to our beach to have a swim one afternoon. So here they come. Well, Stan and I hit it off 
immediately. And we're just like friends. We were just good friends. We swam together and we 
tended to go off by ourselves and talk and play. I was only 10 years old. I mean, you know, play 
like he was my brother and we, we were together that whole summer. I mean, he was down 
constantly once he met me. And he was, he was just a really good friend. I-- 
 
Linda C. Meuter  24:06 
-- was this your-- 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  24:22 
-- my parents spoiled it. My mom and his mom got together and thought this was just so cute, 
and tried to make us boyfriend and girlfriend, which we weren't, not, not in any sense of the 
word boyfriend and girlfriend. We were friends, and so they want-- they, they decided, you 
know, tried to make it like we were dating or like we were. As soon as the word dating, or 
boyfriend, girlfriend came into it, it made us feel a little more awkward with each other. I do-- 
out of that, I do have one really extremely special time, and that was my 10th birthday, and he 
took me on a date, and my mom made me a orange, Chinese orange dress, orange. It would have 
to be orange, my mother's most favorite color. And I had a ponytail with orange chopsticks in it, 
and his mother came to pick me up, and we went off in, I think, a old station wagon, and we 
went to the Leopold Hotel for dinner, and I had breaded veal cutlets. I don't remember what he 
had, I don't remember what Stan had to eat, but I would have to remember what the food was. 
Anyone that knows me knows I would have to remember what the food was, breaded veal 
cutlets. And then we went to see Guys for Dolls. And that was August 9, 1955, and it-- we have 
pictures of it, and they're just precious to us now that we've been married, we've been married 
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almost 28 years, and those pictures when we were kids are really precious to us. It was a sweet 
moment of our time. --Time you were.  
 
Linda C. Meuter  26:34 
Okay, Sue, could you tell me about your teenage years? 
 
Susan Quant Bianchi  26:39 
What a question. Yeah, yes, my teenage years were both awful and wonderful. I'll talk about a 
little bit of the awful part. I was an overweight teenager. And I think for any teenager that's ever 
been overweight, that's the most difficult-- I think that's a difficult time in your life to be 
overweight, the-- your peer group is not wonderful to you. When you're overweight, I recall the 
sixth grade as being the most, the hardest year, probably, of my whole life, other than what I'm 
going through now. Sixth grade, I started my menstrual cycle early, the first one in my class, I 
think. I started growing breasts when I was in the sixth grade. No one else was. I mean, everyone 
else caught me and passed me. I didn't grow that much more, but I started all this early, and I felt 
different, and I was overweight. My mom put me on diet, and my mom was-- that was hard 
because, you know, dieting has to come from within, but when you're in sixth grade, you're 
groping for just finding yourself, let alone how to diet and how to, how to become what you're 
going to become. Some difficult times were: I was terrible at sports, especially anything that had 
anything to do with a ball. If, if a ball was coming to me, it totally paralyzed me. I could not 
catch a ball. So when they picked [?Susie Cute?] and, and gym co-ed, and stood them on each 
side of the room and had them pick the teams for baseball. You know, I was just sweating it in 
the back row, absolutely scared to death that I was going to be the last one picked. And I was 
praying. And I know other kids, you know, now that I'm an adult, I've talked to other people, and 
I know I'm not the only one that went through this, but I just sweated it praying, please don't let 
me be the last one picked. I didn't even, I wasn't even nice enough to care who got picked last. I 
just, Lord, let it not be me. You know, when I was usually picked near last, second to last and 
probably last sometimes, I probably tried to forget those times. And then when I got out there, it 
was just, you know, praying. The whole time the ball was coming at me, I was just praying that I 
would catch it. Now, I didn't catch it. Now, please let it not go too far. So, I have to run too far to 
get it. Now, I've got the ball, you know, and can I get it to second base? Can I get it to third base 
before he gets home? Those were those, those carried into my adult life and into my adult life, 
I'm afraid of a ball. I mean, I'm afraid of team sports. They, they take me back to the sixth grade, 
and I'm this paralyzed little girl who feels worthless, and because we all hate feeling worthless, 
you know, we'll do anything, you know, so that we don't have that feeling. I can remember a few 
years ago, at a friend, Bonnie Harper [?Road's?] house, they all lined up to play volleyball, and 
of course, thank God they aren't changing teams-- you know, we're old enough now that we're 
not selecting teams, but I was on one team, and this one man wanted our team to win. I mean, 
he's 40 some years old, and he was doing everything but jumping on top of me to make sure that 
our team was getting the ball back on-- back over. But the entire time I thought, I'm 30, almost 
32 years old, and the whole time I thought, Boy, we haven't learned anything, have we? I mean, 
you know, we still have to win at any cost. You know that, that's kind of a negative lesson about 
sports that I got. And  being overweight, you-- I got teased, you know, and I was also the tallest 
next to Frank [inaudible]. I was the tallest person in my class. So, you know, take pictures on the 
three slats, and I was in the top row middle, next to Frank, who I liked. So that was okay. But, 
you know, there I was. All through-- most of the rest of my life-- I think I weighed 130 pounds 
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and was five foot six in the sixth grade. Well, when I graduated from high school, I still, you 
know, weighed about that and was five foot seven. So, it's just that I did it all then, and it was a 
real tough time for me. 
 